Kolkata 2 Sep : As an important shock to the West Bengal government, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday confirmed an earlier decision by a single-judge bench to initiate an CBI investigation in the primary teacher recruitment scam.In June of 2022 the bench of a single judge of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay ordered an CBI investigation into the matter and ordered the immediate removal of the chairman of West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) chairman, Manik Bhattacharya, also a Trinamool Congress MLA, from his chair.
However the state government 16 June 2022, challenged both the rulings of the division bench of Justice Subrata Talukdar and Justice Lapita Bandopadhyay.The court ruled on Friday that both previous orders of the bench of a single judge were confirmed by the division bench.
The division bench has also upheld Justice Gangopadhyay’s decision for a court-supervised investigation by CBI.The senior advocate of Calcutta High Court and the CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member Bikash Bhattacharya declared that the court-supervised inquiry conducted by the central government agency is very crucial as the pressure of the judiciary continues to be placed on CBI to speed up the pace of the investigation and complete the investigation in the appropriate time.
“Some tried to make public opinion in the belief that Justice Gangopadhyay was transgressing his boundaries when he passed a series of motivated orders.I am hoping that they will be silenced after the earlier ruling issued by Justice Gangopadhyay has been upheld by the division bench,” he said.
The BJP’s national vice-president and party MP Dilip Ghosh said he is pleased that the state’s efforts to delay the central agency’s investigation in the matter have been rejected by the division bench.”Previously too, there have been numerous instances where the state government as well as the ruling state party tried to block central agency investigations and, in some instances they succeeded.However, this time, their similar efforts were blocked by the division bench.” Ghosh said.
When the report was first submitted, there were no official response from Trinamool Congress on this development.
src/shb/
